lavender

I'd be interested in hearing how it turns out. I can always use personal experience for the newsletter. What works in books and magazines doesn't always work in DuBois.

Two years of experimenting and we've concluded that you can save seeds from the Wave petunias and have them come true for all practical purposes. This is the kind of info you don't get from the seed companies. They also aren't going to tell you that you can carry over your baskets of petunias.

We treat petunias as annuals because they will not come through our winters but they are probably good for many seasons in their native climate. I suspect that they don't go completely dormant where ever they are native something like pansies. Cutting them back will rejuvenate them for another blooming session. It may be difficult to give them enough sun indoors to keep them growing nicely but you should be able to enjoy them for quite some time.

If you do get them through the winter cut them back and stick them outside for the summer and they will come back.

I've never tried this with petunias but I've had some luck with other hanging baskets full of so called annuals.

We finally did get some rain and it looks as though it will rain again today. Your streets get 2 feet of water at high tide? What a weird place to build a city! Head north if it rains too hard.  

We have had city water for about 4 years now. It is sooo nice. All those years of well water - rusty clothes - orange bathtub, dry well, UGG.

 

Can't complain about our well water but the water softener is probably not good for us. I know it isn't good for the plants. I lug water for the orchids when I have time. The rest of the time they just have to cope with it.

WATER. We need water in DuBois.

Forsyth's Drilling got 7 calls for dry wells yesterday. Just a bit of trivia I gathered while my dishwasher was being fixed. Got some really good stuff but I can't repeat it here.    ;D

Be careful with back walnuts. They are difficult to crack and even more difficult to get all of the shells out of. We have some most years and while I bake with them I only do it for us because of the shell problem. They are hard on the teeth!

It is very expensive to buy them shelled so they are a treasure.

Cleaned out my raspberry patch and pruned it hard last month. I'm getting raspberries as big as my thumb. Too bad there aren't enough to make some jam. I usually get more in the spring.

Last year Save a Lot had them for 99 cents as well but I haven't checked lately.

Jelly doesn't set because there isn't enough sugar in it, it isn't acid enough or there isn't enough pectin. Or it didn't get cooked right. It has to come to a rapid boil and boil hard. Sometimes making too big a batch screws it up. That one is my downfall.

Fruit varies in ripeness and acidity so it isn't always easy to get it right.

Penn States canning bulletin says you can fix it:

"When re-cooking and using powdered pectin, for each cup of soft jelly or jam measure 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon water, and 1

Big Lots had them for 99 cents a month or so ago. I can't remember if they had the wide mouth or not.

 

Lavender, did you try these, if so, did you use garlic and how did they turn out? I'm going to the farmers market tomorrow, and I just may pick up a peck of romas to try them, if there are any left.

I did it and I wasn't overly impressed. The flavor was good but they were tough. Maybe I dried them too long. By the time I got around to it the romas I was picking were very small.

ps Yes, I used garlic. I can't resist garlic.

You're welcome. Hope it goes well.

I don't think that sounds like very much but you can always add more in the spring when you see what you need to fill in space, color and bloom time.  

Lilies should go about a foot apart. They will make clumps but it will be 3 or 4 years maybe more before you have to divide them. Gloriosa daisies should be planted about 8 inches apart. Stella d'oros go about a foot apart. It will take about 4 years before you need to divide.

Plant the crocus, hyacinths and tulips in clumps of 2-4 bulbs with the width of one bulb between them.

The thing that will spread fastest is the black-eyed Susan give it at least 36 inches if it is one of the standard sized ones.

Glads supposedly aren't hardy around here but I've had them come back year after year if they are dug in deep enough and have good drainage. Then one year they disappeared. I actually had some forgotten pineapple lilies come back one year and they are tropical. You just never know.

Dahlias aren't hardy so you did the right thing by bringing them in. In the spring after all danger of frost and when the soil has warmed up, put each tuber in the ground about 5-6 inches deep with the eyes pointed up. You can dig deeper and fill the bottom of the hole with some good compost and add a handful of bone meal. Make sure the ground is not soaking wet as dahlias are prone to rotting. A foot apart sounds good to me for average size dahlias. You can go closer for smaller varieties and up to 2 feet for the really big ones.

Good luck!

I know people who have used the mushroom compost and are quite happy with it. It is mainly used for texturing the soil like any compost. The nutritive content isn't high.

You can put bulbs in until the ground freezes but now would be a good time. I hear it is going to get cold and rainy next week.

I don't think that there are trees that just produce female flowers but cross pollination will make your trees more fertile.

There are still chestnuts around here that have sprouted from the stumps of the ones that were done in by the blight. If you have two that sprouted from seed you have something much rarer.

You might be interested in sending these people some samples for identification. http://www.acf.org/    I don't think there is a charge for it..

Sorry, I meant to say that American chestnut trees do not produce female and male flowers on seperate trees (dioecious trees). There are definitly trees that do, the ginko is one of them.

I don't think that there are trees that just produce female flowers but cross pollination will make your trees more fertile.

There are still chestnuts around here that have sprouted from the stumps of the ones that were done in by the blight. If you have two that sprouted from seed you have something much rarer.

You might be interested in sending these people some samples for identification. http://www.acf.org/    I don't think there is a charge for it..

Parsley is a biennial. It will come back but it goes to seed the second year. You don't get much in the way of leaf growth from it. Dill is an annual at least in our area. The plant won't come back but it reseeds for many people. (Not me!) :'(

You're welcome, someone might as well benefit from all my mistakes.

Good luck with it!

I did soup like that this year. I had tons of cabbage so I made the stuffed cabbage soup and canned everything but the rice. I'll put that in when I use it. I usually do vegetable soup that way at the end of the season. All the odds and ends of veggies go in and I add meat or whatever when I open it. This year I had to toss the whole batch. Something got into it that was so bitter it ruined the whole kettle of soup.

This is not the world's greatest reference but all I could find. When you plant a privacy screen or windbreak the idea is to have the trees grow into each other. Blue spruce doesn't grow very fast so maybe that is why they suggest putting them so close together.

http://www.trees-online.com/types_of_trees/blue_spruce.shtml

This is a little better

http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/envirohort/426-712/426-712.html